Wow! Please help

[Cissi Sherlock]

I've posted twice that my son has been infected with the April Fools' virus and asked if there were someone out there that could help him. To date, I have had no responses and I know there many of you out there who are more computer savvy tham I am. I couldn't help him. If you can, please do! I could only get on his case for not making sure his security walls were not in place before he went to an anime convention in nashville, Tenn. at the beginning of this month. So, I turn to those whom I think might be able to help him. Please! I implore the experts!

Pleeeaaaasssseeeeee! If there is someone out there that can advise me on how to help my son, or at least provide a link or to of helpful information that I could pass on to him, please do so.

Thank You!

[Cissi Sherlock]

You are a doll!

Thanks!

He actually cleaned his old account and now says he can see that page you referenced. He thinks he's still infected though. he can't access a lot of stuff, he cabn't windows restore, he can't run any anti-virus program, etc!!! (He's dictating, I'm typing!)

I will forward this info to him and hope it works.

[Kathryn Hammer]

First, ouch. Second, a caveat: I am most definitely NOT a computer expert. But until one comes along, you could try the fix from Semantic. Haven't seen your other posts about it, so don't know if you have confirmed that it's the April Fool's virus for sure or if the affected computer can access the internet at all.

If your son's computer can access the internet, go to this url on the Norton Security website:
http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=conficker_worm

If you can see the page, you don't have the April Fool's virus (the conficker worm) and will have to figure out what nasty you do have. But if you can't access the page, here are your next steps, according to Norton:

Click Start > Run.
In the Run box, type the following: cmd
Click OK.
Type the following and then press Enter. cd..
Repeat the previous step until you get to the root level, or C:\>. Note that if your root drive is not C, the letter will be different.
At C:\> type the following: net stop dnscache
Press Enter. This disables the domain blocking feature of Conficker and you should now be able to reach security Web sites including ours. You should now be able to download the Conficker removal tool here http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-011316-0247-99


***** End Norton instructions*****

Each of the instruction steps ends in a period, so maybe one of the periods after cd is punctuation only, and not part of the command you're supposed to type. (See? I told you I wasn't a computer expert.)

If nothing else, my reply will bump your request so others will see it. Good luck!